


Brucie and the Beast

by Blizzard_Fire



Series: Bruce Week 2020 [7]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Brian Banner's A+ Parenting, Bruce & Hulk Interaction, Bruce Banner-centric, Bruce and Hulk are separate people, Gen, Rapunzel Elements, Teenage Bruce Banner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23396824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blizzard_Fire/pseuds/Blizzard_Fire
Summary: Bruce has lived in the tower all his life, held captive by his father. Every day, he dreams of escape.But a beast wanders the woods at night. Tall and hulking, with greenish-grey skin...
Relationships: Bruce Banner & Hulk
Series: Bruce Week 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1671742
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33
Collections: Bruceweek





	Brucie and the Beast

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: "Fairytale, Rise & Risk" for Bruce Week 2020.
> 
> This prompt was begging for a fairytale AU, wasn't it? Had good fun making this work with Bruce's origin story.

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess.

She was gentle and kind, and loved across the kingdom. She sought to bring peace across the lands, and when she came of age the king and queen talked of finding her a suitable husband to rule by her side.

But before a wedding could be arranged, an evil sorcerer visited the castle. He was entranced by the princess, and cast a spell over the king and queen. Then he bewitched the princess and took her back to his lonely tower in the woods.

The princess remained under his spell for many years, until one day she became pregnant with their child. Her love for her growing baby overcame the sorcerer's spell, and she began searching for a way to escape the tower.

'I wish that I had a son,' she said to herself as she gazed out of the window. 'He will be as brave as a lion, as kind as a lamb, and as clever as a fox.'

Sometime later, the princess gave birth to a baby boy and named him Bruce.

She was dead within the hour.

The sorcerer was evil, but he was also weak of heart and didn't have the stomach to kill his son. So he raised him in secret in the highest room of the tower. When Bruce was old enough to walk and feed himself, the sorcerer stopped visiting. He posted food through a hatch in the door twice a day, and that became the only contact Bruce had with the outside world.

The princess got her wish; Bruce grew up to be very clever. He soon outgrew the meagre library his father furnished him with, and even constructed a telescope out of materials he found in his room. He was kind, and befriended the spiders who made webs above his bed.

And he was brave enough to plot an escape.

Every night, he would gaze out of the very same window his mother once had and imagine countless scenarios where he might climb down from the tower. Ten floors was much too far to fall.

Bruce had heard his father muttering to himself some nights as he paced the floor below. He had grown fearful of his son and his cleverness, and was plotting to kill him when he came of age.

On the night before his eighteenth birthday, Bruce put his plan into action. He gathered every blanket and shirt he owned, tore them into strips and knotted them into a long rope. It took him all night. Bruce knew that when one came of age, they were more susceptible to bewitchment. He also knew that the woods came alive with monsters at night, and that to leave now would be to risk certain death.

The next morning, the sorcerer opened the hatch in Bruce's door to deliver his breakfast. 'Boy? Get ready. Now that you are of age it is time for you to go out into the world and seek your own fortune. You have lived within my walls long enough.'

The only response he heard was a scuffle followed by a cry of alarm. 'Boy? What are you doing in there?' He bent down to peer through the hatch.

The room was empty. But the window was open, and a rope of knotted bedsheets wound from the bedpost to the outside world.

'BOY!' The sorcerer waved his hand and the door was blasted off its hinges. 'Cursed child, I'll make you wish you'd never been born...'

He didn't see Bruce step out from a shadowy corner and sneak out through the doorway behind him. But he heard him trip over the food on the floor outside.

'You dare defy _me_ you insolent brat? I will burn you for this! Get back here!'

Bruce bolted down the narrow hallway and made it to the stairs. Having lived in the same room all his life, Bruce was not accustomed to stairs. He took them two at a time, heart in his mouth, until he missed his footing and fell the rest of the way down the long spiral staircase. He sliced his hand on a stone step as he dragged himself up, battered and bruised. His father's thundering footsteps echoed behind him.

Bruce ran out of the tower and out into the harsh daylight. Too much space, too much noise and sound and open air - 

The stable was right nearby, and there was even a horse tethered outside. Bruce knew his father liked to go for afternoon rides. That had been his father's downfall, really; Bruce had done every bit of research he could, including how to ride a horse.

It wasn't as easy as it looked in the books.

Bruce flung himself into the saddle, twisting up an arm to yank on the reins. 'Yah!'

The horse broke into a swift trot - just as the sorcerer burst from the tower entrance. He flung balls of fire and flying spiders and shards of pointed ice, but none found their mark and in the next minute Bruce's father and the prison he'd lived in for so long had both vanished from view.

There had been one flaw in Bruce's plan; he wasn't sure where to go next. He'd been so focused on escape that he wasn't sure what to do now. He let the horse guide him through the woods, hoping that his father wouldn't chase him too far.

Bruce rode for hours until he was tired and hungry and saddle-sore. The sky grew darker above him, until the woods resonated with strange howls and cries. His horse began to wander in circles, and Bruce was equally lost. Eventually, he set up camp for the night and tried to get a few hours of sleep.

That was when the wolves attacked.

They were silent at first, just soft footfalls on dead leaves. Then the horse was screaming, and Bruce was running, but the wolves were everywhere: moonlit flashes of tooth and black eyes. Bruce could feel his own blood running warmly down his arms as he struggled to fend them off.

He fell and then they were upon him, and the clearing was filled with the sound of tearing clothes and Bruce screaming for his father to save him. For who else in this world would take pity on a boy who didn't belong in it?

From the woods came a roar so deep and powerful that the ground shivered. The wolves whimpered and scattered.

Bruce squinted at the shadows, heart racing. He held up a shaking hand. 'Please...' he whispered.

A great beast stepped out of the darkness, skin green-grey in the moonlight. 'Puny lost thing,' it grunted.

Bruce fainted.

The first thing he became aware of was warm sunlight, pressing down on his eyelids.

Bruce stirred and found his limbs too heavy to move. When he tried to, he gasped at the pain that tore down his side. He opened his eyes to find himself in an enormous king-size bed, wrapped in enough blankets to smother a horse.

_That poor horse..._

How had he got here? The last thing he remembered was the hungry wolves - and the monster poised to kill him...

A warm breeze flowed into the room; the huge window occupying the east-facing wall was long-devoid of glass. Only a few coloured shards still clung to the frame. The bough of an oak tree had grown into the room, and clumps of tiny white flowers blossomed along it.

With some effort, Bruce pushed back the covers. Bandages were wrapped across his chest, holding a dressing against the wound on his side. His arms were covered in scratches, but they appeared to have been cleaned whilst he slept.

Alone for the time being, Bruce covered his face and allowed himself a few deep, shuddering breaths. Presumably, his father had left him for dead. He was on his own now.

Gathering his strength, he climbed out of bed. His limbs were bruised and sore but he was able to walk, and he checked his reflection in the dusty, ornate mirror standing in the corner. Just a scrawny, hollow-eyed boy. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting.

Bruce eased open the heavy wooden door and went to explore the house.

It was like something out of a storybook: the rooms were high-ceilinged and painted with elaborate murals, now cracking with age. Staircases wound around each other like tree roots, and sunlight streamed through holes in the old brickwork.

The entrance doors were half as tall as the tower he was kept in. A heavy iron bar held them shut.

'No!' a voice growled, deep and commanding. Bruce spun around in fright.

The monster walked like a man, but it had a face like a gargoyle. It scowled down at Bruce. 'No leaving.'

Bruce was frozen with fear, his heart hammering in his ears. 'I'm sorry, I didn't - '

'Small boy stay here now. Here safe.' It stepped into the light. Its skin was greenish-grey, and it wore only a pair of dirty, ragged pants. 'Follow.'

And so Bruce found himself obediently walking behind the beast, their steps churning up dust from the worn carpet. 

The banquet hall seemed a little more inhabited than the rest of the house; soft rugs were piled up in one corner and the long table was piled high with food.

Bruce watched in amazement as the green man plodded past him. 'I thought you were going to eat me back there in the woods,' he confessed.

The beast grunted. 'Wolves tastier. Boy no good for eat.'

Somehow, Bruce wasn't wholly reassured by that. 'Why did you help me?'

He shrugged his massive shoulders. 'Hulk want.'

'Is that your name? Hulk?'

Hulk nodded and sat cross-legged at the table. It certainly didn't seem like he intended to eat him, and with the solemnity of an undertaker he pushed a pile of mushrooms towards Bruce. 'You eat.'

Bruce picked one up and examined it tentatively. 'Um, it's fine. I'm not hungry.' In truth his stomach ached with hunger, but he was pretty sure you couldn't eat things that glowed in the dark. 'Why don't you have them?'

Hulk grunted and shook his head. 'You guest. You eat first.'

'I think these are poisonous for me.' He selected a soggy apple instead. 'So you... live here? All by yourself? That sounds lonely.'

'Big house,' he agreed. 'People gone.'

Bruce's eye was drawn to the portraits hanging on the wall. Moustached kings and long-haired queens... one in particular held his attention. A young woman with dark hair and brown eyes and a soft smile. 'I think - ' His throat closed up. 'I think this was my mother's home.' He knew little about her, except that she came from a nearby province. 'He never told me she was royal.' Did that make him a prince?

'Hulk know her. Nice lady protect Hulk when bad wizard came.' He sniffed. 'Bad wizard curse Hulk. If Hulk outside in daytime, Hulk die.'

Bruce lowered his apple. 'That's terrible.'

Hulk looked down. Despite his size he looked alarmingly like a saddened child in that moment. Bruce felt a flash of anger at his father: three lives lived out in solitude. Although he'd never met her, he wished fiercely for his mother in that moment.

Bruce stood up. 'Why don't you show me around?'

The house was enormous. There was a swimming pool, countless bedrooms and drawing rooms, and - 

'Oh wow,' he gasped as Hulk elbowed open another door.

It was an enormous circular room, a little like his tower room but many times bigger. Curved bookshelves hugged the walls. The books stretched all the way up to the ceiling. He laughed in disbelief.

Hulk watched him fondly. 'Boy like?'

'There's so many books here! Yes, I love it.'

In here, Hulk seemed different from the way he'd been in the forest. Calm, relaxed... happy. 'Good. Boy read books. Boy be happy.'

Bruce was only too happy to carry an armful of books back to his room. His wounds still troubled him so for the most part he read in bed or in the dining hall. Some days he would read to Hulk, who was delighted to hear the stories. 

Hulk didn't know where he came from, only that he'd been born in the castle and had once protected the king, queen and princess. Perhaps he was an ogre, or perhaps he'd been a magical experiment. Despite his appearance he was always infinitely gentle towards Bruce. He only became angry when he spoke of leaving.

Bruce was allowed free roam of the castle, but Hulk forbade him to even wander the grounds, even when his wounds were healed. After a time, he began to feel trapped again. He'd escaped one life of seclusion only to find another.

To be imprisoned with kindness was much the same as to be imprisoned with cruelty.

When Hulk realised Bruce was gone, he roared so loudly that snow was dislodged from the castle tower.

Bruce straightened up, a clump of snow falling from his hand. The great entrance doors crashed open and there was Hulk, face livid and breathing hard. 'Boy stay!' he shouted, but he could not take a step beyond the doors.

'You can't keep me here forever, Hulk,' he said softly.

'STAY!'

'I want to see the world. I deserve to.' He paused. 'But I'm not going yet.' He'd spent many long hours in the library, searching through books on magic. 'There's something you didn't tell me, about your curse. You didn't tell me it could be broken.'

Hulk growled, then sat on the floor in defeat. 'Bad wizard laugh at Hulk. Say Hulk ugly. Say no one love Hulk.' He looked up hopefully as Bruce walked back over to him, remaining just out of arm's reach.

'He told you that you were a monster.' Those same words echoed in Bruce's head; his father had said the same to him. All curses had to have terms, a means to break them. It was part of what gave them power. 'And he told you that the only way to break the spell was if you could be loved.'

It was hard to tell in the shadow of the castle's interior, but he thought he saw a glisten in Hulk's eye. 'Boy no go,' he said softly.

Bruce stepped closer and held out his hand. 'I'm not leaving,' he said softly. 'Because I know how it feels to be all alone.' He'd read every fairytale ever written. This was the moment when he was needed the most, and he wasn't about to abandon his only friend.

Slowly, hesitantly, Hulk stretched out a hand. The bright winter sunlight illuminated his green skin, but it did not burn him. He grunted in shock, eyes wide.

Bruce took his giant hand in both of his. 'I'm not going anywhere without you,' he promised.

Hulk smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for following me along on Bruce Week 2020! And thank you to the mods for making this happen, I had an absolute blast writing these. It's given me time to get some distance on my novel (which I will soon be re-plotting yet again!).
> 
> Next month I will be taking part in the Marvel Fandom Scramble Challenge - they're still taking entries until April 24th so [take a look](https://marvelfandomscramble.tumblr.com/) if you want to get involved!


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